Darryl Sutter wasn’t sure how things would work out when he replaced Terry Murray and made his Kings coaching debut five years ago, on Dec. 22, 2011.
Sutter had been working on the family farm in Viking, Canada, but his wife, Wanda, and their youngest son, Chris, were living in Calgary while Chris finished high school. They didn’t immediately join him in Los Angeles, where he moved into the home Murray had vacated after General Manager Dean Lombardi decided the 13-12-4 Kings needed a different coaching voice and style.
“I spent my Christmas alone, sitting there by myself saying, ‘I don’t know about this,’ ” Sutter recalled last week.